1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to a multiple belt conveyor system for conveying food product into a food cutter blade assembly. More particularly, it relates to a four conveyor belt system which forms a moving channel through which food product is conveyed.
2. Background Art
A significant percentage of the fresh fruits and vegetables grown in the world today are commercially processed and packaged prior to distribution to the general public. Processing typically includes peeling, cutting, preserving, either by cooking, canning, or freezing, and packaging in convenient and appropriate portion sizes. This invention relates to a means of delivering the fruit or vegetable to be cut to the cutting device.
There are two general categories of cutting devices in current use today. If the cutting process is amenable to the use of a stationary set of cutting blades, then the preferred method is to use a hydraulic cutting system wherein the food products to be cut are suspended in water and pumped at high speed through some sort of an alignment device and then into the path of a fixed cutting blade array. When the food product impinges the fixed array of cutting blades, it is cut into the desired shapes. After which, the cut food pieces are separated from the water and transported for further processing. An example of such a hydraulic cutting machine can be found in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,503. These types of machines generally have very high capacities and also the benefit of few moving parts, thus relatively low maintenance requirements.
However, there are some types of food cuts which cannot be accomplished by use of a fixed cutting or stationary cutting blade. A good example of this is the helical coil, or curly cut, french fry as shown in SAMPSON, U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,838, and the helical split ring french fry as shown in my patent application Ser. No. 07/472,714, filed Jan. 31, 1990. Both of these cuts require the use of a rotating cutter blade assembly, and as such, are not readily adaptable for use with a hydraulic cutting machine. As a result there is a second general classification of food cutting machines. This is the mechanical machine wherein the food product to be cut is not suspended in a carrier medium, but rather is mechanically forced through the cutting device. The present invention is directed to a transport system for conveying food product into a mechanical cutting device as opposed to a hydraulic cutting device.
For purposes of this specification, the potato will be used as a representative food product, however it should be clearly understood that the problems discussed in this prior art section of the specification, and the solutions described in the remainder of the specification and in the claims, are equally applicable to other food products including, but certainly not limited to, beets, cucumbers, carrots, onions, pineapples, apples, pears, and the like.
As anyone who has even taken a sharp knife to a fresh potato knows, it takes a considerable amount of force to cut an uncooked potato into small pieces. The conventional solution has been to use some sort of a plunger apparatus to firmly hold the potato fixed relative to the rotating cutter blade, and to push it into the rotating cutter blade. An example of this conventional wisdom is found in SAMPSON, ET AL., U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,838, which discloses a machine which has a feed mechanism having a plurality of holding cylinders into which potatoes are individually loaded and a plunger device for pushing the held potatoes through a rotating cutter. Machines such as those disclosed in SAMPSON, ET AL. are complicated, have a large number of moving parts, are expensive to purchase, and difficult to maintain. The other, and perhaps even more significant problem is that the machines as disclosed by SAMPSON, ET AL. have, by their very design, a fixed reload time and as a result, a limited capacity.
Another problem with cutting fresh fruits and vegetables is that they are not generally of uniform size and shape. This can be particularly true with potatoes. Potatoes, and particularly the Russet Burbank variety of potatoes, which is the most common and preferred variety of potato used for production of frozen french fries, can vary in size and shape over a substantial range. In addition, not only can the size of the potato vary, so can the shape of its cross-sectional area. Russet Burbank potatoes can be perfectly cross-sectionally round, oblong, or even have one flat side. Lengthwise, the shape can be round, elliptical, or even a triangular shaped ellipsoid.
Yet, in any rotary cutting blade system, regardless of the size and shape of the potato to be cut, it is very important that the potato be centered over the axis of rotating of the cutter blade in order to minimize the amount of scrap or unusable cut pieces that will be generated in the cutting process. For example, if the desired cut design is a helical spiral where each piece is approximately 6 mm. in cross-sectional width and length, if the potato, when impinging upon the cutter blade assembly, is offset by just a mere 4 mm., the two outer helical coils cut from the potato will be scrap. If the potato being cut has an average cross-sectional diameter of 5 cm. and the outer two helicals of 6 mm. each are scrap, that will result in 24% of the potato being cut into scrap or unusable pieces. Also, it should be apparent that separating these scrap pieces from the high quality helical spirals is difficult and time consuming.
Accordingly, it is an important object of this invention to not only deliver the potatoes to the rotating cutter assembly with sufficient force to pull them through the cutter assembly, but also to center them directly coincident to the axis of rotation of the rotating cutter blade.
What is needed is a belted conveyor channel which will firmly grip and pull an endless stream of properly centered potatoes from a hopper into a rotating cutter blade assembly. In order to accomplish this object, it is necessary that the conveyor assembly hold the potatoes with sufficient force to enable it to continually pull the addition, the conveyor assembly must be able to hold the potatoes with a uniform force regardless of nonuniform size and shape of the various potatoes.